deborahb

Very chuffed to see that A BOOK OF ENDINGS is in the finals list for the Australian Shadows Award. My short story ‘Six Suicides’ (a story I swore nobody would read!) also made the shortlist, seeing as this year the Shadows are divvied into three categories: long fiction, short fiction, and edited publication.

Which begs the question: will there be THREE of those fantastical statues to present?!

Fine company to be had in the list, with Paul Haines, Kaaron Warren, Jason Fischer, Felicity Dawker and other fabby writers. Hurrah!

Over at the Twelfth Planet Press blog (publisher of such excellent tomes as A Book of Endings, Horn, Roadkill/Siren Beat & the pending Sprawl & Glitter Rose, to name a few), editor & publisher Alisa Krasnostein puts the tough word on collections:

To me, a debut collection is almost a declaration, a promise. Of battles won and of wars to be waged. Or of lessons learned and skills developed and new challenges to be taken up. A debut collection says to the world “Here I Am!” It also says, “Judge me now.” A debut collection is a calling card, a cv to submit to bigger and brighter job applications. It says, “This is what I can do, let me try that now…”

Fortunately I didn’t realise the import of A Book of Endings (aBoE, for the lazy amongst us — namely me) when we were working on it. I thought of it as just my foot-stamping tantrum, my I-want-I-want!, my barbaric yawp, my adolescent assertion of my need for some goddamn space in a noisy, crowded world.

I guess it really was about me making some room for myself. And if there was an element of ’screw you, world!’ in my work on the project, well, it’s probably not intentional. But it’s not misleading either. The book is a kind of take-it-or-leave-it thing, really, isn’t it. Like painting a target on my head, I wanted the book to say ‘this is me, come get me’. So I could run like hell towards the challenge of a world that seemed mostly to be ignoring me.

I don’t mean ignoring me in terms of my writing (though every writer must feel it: the wide gaps between the small bubbles of response you get whenever you put something ‘out there’, the sunk-like-a-stone sensation of losing a story to the clamourous silence of the audience, reviewers, family, colleagues who, like Pavlov, will occasionally and collectively ring a bell to say ‘here’s some food or maybe some kind words, lemme measure your salivation’, but might just as easily electrify your cage to study your budding sense of learned helplessness). No, I don’t mean that, because critics largely have been very gracious about what I call ‘my stuff’. I just mean … in general.

I mean, in general, the world hasn’t given me enough of what I want, despite my own inarticulate attempts to work out what that is. The world has often disappointed me in random ways and, yes, it must be admitted, delighted me in surprising ways & so I figured, hell, I’d throw my hat in the ring. If that was to be the game, I’d put my stamp on it or stamp my foot on it, whichever. I’d see what would happen if the maelstrom of the world was flung a book with my name on the cover, and forced to swallow or goddamn gag on it.

It’s been, I admit, wholly satisfying (though sometimes in perverse ways).

Hello world. Here I am.

Come get me.

The Locus Recommended Reading list is up — & so is our little book that could, A Book of Endings! *woot* & thanks to all the Locus readers.

There’s fine company to be had on the list: Twelfth Planet shows its spine, with Horn & Siren Beat also getting mentions. Paul Haines’ Wives is (are?) there — a story I’m still too nervous to read. Also Nix, Ball, Lanagan, Strahan, plus Klages, Lake, Link, Valente, Griffith, Irvine …. I could go on but it seems crazy. Just go read the list.

In other Tuesday highlights, you’ve got a chance at (psychologist & sceptic) Richard Wiseman’s site to pledge your soul to the devil. Go on. Give it a go. What’s the worst that could happen?

How cool, A BOOK OF ENDINGS has made the shortlist for the 2010 William L. Crawford Award!

I’m assured the readers are ‘very picky’, so a heartfelt *hug* and congratulations to fellow short-listers, Kari Sperring (LIVING WITH GHOSTS), and Ali Shaw (THE GIRL WITH GLASS FEET — wow, I love this title) and an even bigger *hug* for Jedediah Berry. Not just for his passionate guitar-playing at the annual WFC cheese party. But also for winning the Crawford Award with his book, THE MANUAL OF DETECTION.

Been meaning to read THE MANUAL for a year — many rave reviews have been directed its way.

Many thanks to Gary K. Wolfe & the whole crew for taking the time to consider my book. Very cheered!

Plus: gotta love an award where the winner is announced at the same time as the shortlist-ees. Really takes the stress outta the thing when the race is run before you realise you’ve even been running. Thank-you, sophisticated Crawford-ites!

Look at that, two of the new stories from A Book of Endings (now available, etc) are on the nomination list for the British SF Awards. Woot! *Not* the shortlist, I hasten to add. It simply means, I think, that some kind member(s) of the British SF Association has (er, have) nominated ‘Diamond Shell’ and ‘Problems of Light and Dark’ for best short story — putting me in the same list as Cat Valente, Peter Watts, Bruce Sterling & Eugie Foster, to name a few.

NOT a shortlist: let’s not go overboard.

But as fuel for my ongoing love affair with the British, this is cool. I am much cheered, & find myself wanting to use such archetypal British phrases as ‘geezer’ and ‘hows yer farva’, and to name my firstborn Ebenezer, which I think is a British name.

If you are a kind British person &/or a member of BSFA & you’d like to read these stories, feel free to drop me a line (deborahb AT livejournal DOT com) & I will cheerfully — very cheerfully — forward you an electronic copy of said stories. I may get a bit carried away & send you more than those two, but you’ll at least get those two stories & you can read ‘em or use ‘em for your electronic bird cages as is your wont.

Go to it, kind British people!

Edit: someone mentioned they couldn’t get through on that email address. I tested it & didn’t get a bounce message, but I didn’t get the test message either! Instead, then, try rous AT deborahbiancotti DOT net for all your correspondence needs.

Over at the American Book Review, they’ve made a list of 100 best last lines from novels. Most of ‘em aren’t even spoilers. Some of ‘em really make you wonder what the hell kinda book came BEFORE that line. Check it out.

Also a note to whatever hacker tried to line up vietnameseorphansfund.org to point to my website — thanks, but I’ve deleted that now. And: what the?

One of the opportunities A Book of Endings created was the chance to get my writing in front of a wider audience. To see what the rest of the world might think. The Australian genre scene is so warm & welcoming that I’d grown suspicious of the kind words occasionally attributed to my work in reviews & conversations.

So I pinged a couple of wider-stream review sources to see if, well, if the Emperor really was wearing any clothes.

The Syd Uni Alumni review came out first & said: “These are unnerving and elliptical, in the main, and tread a fine line between the everyday mundaneity that never is and overblown literary style that can be tiresome when too self-conscious. Mostly they stay on the right side of the line and intrigue more than irritate.”

Yes, I spotted it, too. “Mostly”. But that’s cool. Given the book is largely retrospective I could even entertain the idea that maybe the irritating ones were the early ones, and the new ones are better. Hell, I’m occasionally optimistic that way.

The Short Review is a site dedicated to short story writing, & is definitely worth checking out. Of my book, reviewer Mario Guslandi said, “Deborah Biancotti’s debut collection left me both hopeful and frustrated. Here we have a writer with a great potential, able to produce some outstanding stories, who, unfortunately, often wastes her talent writing tasteless pieces with implausible plots and nondescript characters. When inspired, Biancotti is a top notch author. When uninspired, the author of mediocre tales can irritate, in view of what she can do when at the top of her game.”

I know, I know. Now you, like me, want to know which are the tasteless stories!

Well, I guess taste is a matter of … erm, taste. So I can’t fault Guslandi for his passionate chastisement of my choice of writing subjects. Though I am curious about it. Maybe I’ll email him to find out what he means. Since he also reviews for SF Site, infinity plus, Horrorworld and Alien Online, it’s certainly not that he’s NOT a genre reader — which would be the easiest out.

Guslandi then go on to discuss the “five sparkling gems” of the book — and this is the really interesting stuff, I find: I love finding out what stories *worked* for people. There’s no predicting it, and here again I’m surprised to find what he enjoyed the most. If I’d had to choose my 5 best stories, would I have chosen these? … Hmmm. Maybe not.

If you’ve read the book, I’d love to know what stories worked for you — & what you found positively TASTELESS! Comment or email as is your will, noble readers.

… turns out you can still buy Redsine #7, edited by Trent Jamieson & Garry Nurrish, from about 2002.

I loved Redsine and always wished it had continued for longer. It was a classy zine, and short (a good characteristic for a zine, imho: one-sitting-reading always scores well with me).

And I love it not only because it was the home of my second-ever published (and first-ever completed) story, Silicon Cast — which is, ahem, *also* still available thanks to GoogleBooks. Well, in part.

Not sure how I feel about that. *pauses to reflect* Well, pretty relaxed.

Silicon Cast feels very young to me now, but still has a relatively straight-forward horror narrative that makes me grin. I do love a bit of ‘ew’ in my reading. Terry Dowling, my first teacher, read this over for me when I was struggling and it was certainly in part because of his encouragement that I ever continued with writing. And yes, you can read a hardcopy version in A Book of Endings if you’re so inclined.

Anyhow. If you read the full version, let me know what you think of the story!

Honestly? I got into short stories because it seemed like a good way to learn to write. It’s become much more than that, of course, but I’ve not paused very often to think about what place they do have for me, and further what place they have for readers.

I’ve been surprised by the amount of interest in A Book of Endings, for example, and overwhelmed by the response of readers. Enough of my friends not only bought the book but *read* it to make me think people actually are interested in the short form. When challenged, plenty of my friends were adamant that yes, they really did like reading short stories even before my book came along and yes, they weren’t just buying it out of sympathy (though I suspect some of them were!) that I thought I’d overlooked something.

I admit I always thought short stories were rather esoteric, enjoyed more by writers than readers. Short stories are often a harder read than novels, I think. Because you have to pay attention the whole way through. Novels you can drift in and out, doze off on a daybed, miss a few words because the hammock is swinging too hard — all those hiccups that occur in perfect reading fantasies. But overall it’s easier to keep track of a novel because even if you miss bits the narrative spine will hopefully pull you through.

So I was still surprised when I read this in the Syd Uni Alumni magazine review of A Book of Endings: “Biancotti is further proof of why readers enjoy the short story, even though publishers prefer to pretend we don’t.”

And over here at the Guardian, some discussion about why women, in particular, are being recognised in the short story field (are they? well, isn’t that good news).

Short stories, on the other hand, are famously uncommercial; that, coupled with the perceived exactingness of the form and its heavyweight literary lineage, means that short stories by women are taken seriously – and awarded accordingly.

That would be ironic if true: women gain more recognition in short stories because short stories aren’t coveted by publishers either.

Over at Terra Incognita, my story Hush is now online as a podcast — AND coming soon to iTunes. Double the Hush!

This time we don’t get the whiskey tones of Nick Evans, I’m afraid. The author has to read her own stories at Terra Incognita. Must be part of that whole global economic crisis thing. I’ve tried to remember what I learned watching Dorothy Porter read one of her stories at Stanton Library years back. What I liked most was that she made it sound like a conversation. No Grahnd Poh-etry Rahding Voice for Dorothy Porter. I loved her more for that.

But heck, I never even shook her hand. So you can be assured that all flaws and shortcomings in this reading (well, this story, too) are mine.

Hush is one of the six new stories in A Book of Endings. It’s a little bit steampunk, a little bit revenge tale. And it features a dog and a talking horse. What more could you want?

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A Book of Endings, go on, buy it via Twelfth Planet Press.

For anyone waiting on a copy of A Book of Endings from last week’s launch (where we ran out of books), the box has arrived! Distribution is imminent.

I’m off to the World Fantasy Con in a little over a week, though, so we might have to make this quick. May have to be a pub gathering next weekend. ;p (Note to developer friends: ever done a soft launch AFTER the real launch?)

Lots of excellent endings in last week’s poll. Thanks, everyone. I had a blast reading through the nominations.

I got to hear the ending to Ulysses (without having to read the book — thanks, Wendy! And great ending, too). I found myself in complete agreement with Stephen Dedman about the excellence of the ending for Casablanca, & I was reminded of the cheeky ending for the original Italian Job via Jon Gibbs. Cold Comfort Farm, Lord of Light & Bridge of Birds received intriguing mentions. And then there was Pet Sematary (oooohhhhhh, good one, Chuck!).

Tansy & Cat nominated two fabulous ‘dumb courage’ endings — Blake’s 7 & Zulu. Both great films, not just great endings. bluetyson (eep, I don’t actually know your name!) also nominated Blake’s 7 (deservedly, one of the best endings evah!), & also The Usual Suspects for good measure. What a fantastic movie that is, too. Brilliant whodunnit.

David Carroll’s real life ending for Thelma & Louise was awesome. I loved this one. And then there were the metatextual endings: real life by Paul Haines. Hard to argue with that one! And Gillian Polack’s ‘pick your own ending’ made me chuckle out loud. Well done on that one!

But in the end I decided to give the free copy of A Book of Endings to a sentimental favourite. Grant Watson’s nomination of ‘The Monster at the End of This Book’ was a book my little sister received, but which bewitched me even more than her, I think, for the break-out unpredictability of it. I’d never seen anything like it! A book which actually referred to ITSELF as a book! Far out, man! (What? It was the seventies…)

Because you see, gentle reader, the monster at the end of the book … is…

Well, I won’t spoil it for you.

Grant, feel free to step forward & claim your prize!

A huge thank-you to the people who came to the launch of A Book of Endings yesterday. NG Gallery put on a damn classy show (the catering was so artfully done most people actually *mistook* it for art), & the crowd was cheerful & kind & wonderful. I was blown away by the number of attendees. Among the crowd were many friends & family I hadn’t seen in years. (One relative commented that the last time he’d seen me I’d measured up to his waist.)

I was overwhelmed.

Margo Lanagan gave me the most gracious, convincing write-up I’ve ever had (thanks Margo!), & I believe my family was duly impressed. Especially when I burst into tears. (We shall speak no more of that.)

Alas, we sold out of every book I had! Some of you put your names on the order list, but if you haven’t done that & you’d still like to order a book, please just let me know via the comments, or email me at deborahb AT-diddy-AT livejournal.com. I shall post ‘em off when ‘the publisher’ sends more.

Special thanks has to go to my sister, Rachel, whose up-selling skills were something to behold. Instead of offering people change, she’d ask them if they wanted to purchase a second book. Some did fall for her charms — & I just love that my good buddy Sue rocked up to the head of the signing queue with no less than FOUR books in her hand! They do make great Xmas gifts.

Also there was a rather special family photo taken of the Biancotti-Wegert-Reganzani-Miller family which I intend to frame for the wall.

Thanks again to everyone. I’m just blown away.

More photos at Flickr here & at Cat Sparks’ photo stream, or feel free to forward your own!

I’ve been thinking about endings — as I am wont to do — & I thought I’d list a few of my favourites to inspire you to tell me your own favourite ending:

* Best ending = LITTLE BIG, by John Crowley: I don’t often describe a book a ‘beautiful’, & that’s because I’m reserving the label for Little Big. This is a stunning, satisfying, unsettling, undeniable book. I’ve never been more convinced by a book — more convinced it was real, & merely transcribed. My first writing teacher, Terry Dowling, mentioned this book as having the ‘perfect last line’. What I remember of it is the sheer bittersweetness of the whole journey. I love this book.

* Most surprising ending = THE LAND OF LAUGHS, Jonathan Carroll: I’m a big Carroll fan, & my love affair began here, as it should, with The Land of Laughs. Thing is, the ending of the book is so … downbeat, say … that I actually turned the page expecting to see, well, another page. I was mistaken.

* Best subversive ending = THE BLOOD OF ROSES, Tanith Lee: This could be my favourite Lee book. This, or THE BIRTHGRAVE, I’m not sure which. But this one has the best haHAA! ending, the best ‘ohwillyoulookatthat, establishedempire, Ibetyouweren’texpectingTHAT!’ ending. I would almost call it a barbaric yawp of an ending.

* Best no-don’t-end ending = ASH, A SECRET HISTORY, Mary Gentle: I have a bunch of Gentle books on my shelves, but I’m afraid to read them in case they don’t live up to A Secret History.

* Best ah-get-fcked ending = THE SPARROW, Mary Doria Russell: I loved this book. I didn’t necessarily love the ending, though.

* Best we’re-all-gonna-die ending = a tie, between Angel (end of endings, Season 5) & Blake’s 7 (Season 4 — were there only 4 seasons??). Both featured that against-all-odds kinda ending that fires the blood, sets the heart racing & makes you want to leap into the TV & fight alongside your erstwhile, ill-fated heroes. Rawr!

* Best we’re-almost-all-gonna-agree-on-this ending: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. Curse you, William Goldman, for your soul-destroying, heart-wrenching scripts & your gorgeous ‘dumb courage’ theme. I both love and hate you.

OK. What’s your favourite ending?

A reminder for anyone who’s free this Saturday afternoon (and also, in the vicinity of Sydney), that A Book of Endings will be launching locally:

3pm Saturday 10 October
NG Art Gallery
Upstairs at 3 Little Queen St
Chippendale NSW 2008
(about 2 bus stops from Central Station or a 10-minute walk)

Launch MC: Margo Lanagan

Champagne & OJ provided, or feel free to purchase a drink at the bar downstairs.

$25 on the day (cash sales only on the day, or order online)

And in honour of the event, I’m giving away a FREE! copy of A Book of Endings to the person who has the wackiest answer to the question:

What would be YOUR favourite ending?

(Feel free to interpret that any way you like).

Best answer chosen by Friday this week. Postage anywhere in the world!

Spring is a crazy time. Not just because of odd things like dust storms, but also because spring is when I want to do EVERYTHING at once. I want to write and read and paint and sing and watch great cinema and scour my brain of all the ideas it has spinning around inside.

Today the air is crystal clear again, sky is blue, the ‘red menace’ (as the media is calling it) has retreated & if it wasn’t for the photos, you’d swear it never happened. Flickr has an entire project dedicated to yesterday in Sydney: it’s called the Red Sydney Project, unsurprisingly. Some of my photos are there, too. And members of the Red Sydney Project have been asked to contribute to a print-on-demand project called Dust Storm. As you see, we in Sydney are obsessed with the whole red dust event.

And, of course, we still have the dust. Anything that was outside yesterday is now covered in a layer of red dust. Apparently car wash firms are having a field day.

But none of this is what I wanted to discuss today. I wanted to say that due to an unforeseen double-booking, Garth Nix won’t be able to make the Sydney launch of A Book of Endings on Saturday 10-October. Garth is a tough act to follow, of course, and with his absence the question became, ‘what brave, thoughtful soul will step unto the breach? what noble, wise, etc?’

But in excellent news, Margo Lanagan has promised to don the mantle — or the cape, as it were (I haven’t told her about that bit) — for the role of ‘making me look good to my family’. Margo promises my fam will be impressed. Though there was an element of ‘mwhahahahaa’ to her words, I’m pretty sure.

A Book of Endings. Launching Saturday 10-October, 3pm at NG Gallery, Little Queen St, Chippendale. Now with extra Margo Lanagan!

Years back, when I was clearly more of an optimist than I am now, I started collecting links on ‘promoting your book’. Just the links, not the articles, because I didn’t want to fill up my computer with useless words. And now that I have a book, of course all those links are out of date. I have text files full of links to broken pages! What, I wonder, did those pages say? And where are today’s pages?

My head is filled with questions!

So now I’m looking for good resources on promotion for writers. I understand there are such things as ‘press releases’ and ‘review venues’ & even ‘bookstores’, & I’m wondering how you write ‘em, contact ‘em, or convince ‘em to carry your book.

I’ve been wondering this for a couple weeks (since the launch, in fact), but today the questions were really brought to the fore when one gentle friend said to me, “I looked for your book in Borders AND Dymocks, and they both didn’t have it!” She even, apparently, convinced the helpful woman in one of these stores to put it on ‘the list’, whatever ‘the list’ is. I hope it’s a good list. I hope I get on it!

If you, gentle reader, have a link (that’s still active) to a place in the interwebby which addresses any or all of these questions, feel free to post that link here.

Conversely, if you are a marketing student looking to work for free for a good cause, well, you probably should be looking into the plight of native fruit bats or something, rather than wasting your time with my queries — but if you do have a term paper lying around that explains all these things, well, your work is welcome here.

Now I might do some recreational reading, for once, because my head is toast.

A quick update because I have to do some novel writing tonight, but wanted to say hurrah! and thanks! to all the people who came to the very first launch of my very first book, A Book of Endings at Cabinet Bar over the Continuum weekend in Melbourne. I’m not sure if it was the Lady Lara’s (ie. gin & champagne cocktails), the welcoming staff at Cabinet, the cheeriness of the crowd who were able to find their way out of the con hotel, down the road, around the corner, into the alley way (past the garbage bins) to brave the steep staircase into the bar, or whether, indeed, it was Mr Strahan’s compelling & convincing speech & Mz Krasnostein’s convivial catering — or indeed, whether it was ALL of these things — but the launch was a blast!

Thank-you to the peeps who came, the peeps who accosted me the next day in the corridors to say, ‘Sorry I missed your launch!’, & the peeps who couldn’t make it but thought about it, or are thinking of coming to the next one:

Sydney Launch of A Book of Endings
3pm Saturday 10 October
NG Art Gallery
Upstairs at 3 Little Queen St
Chippendale NSW 2008
(about 2 bus stops from Central Station or a 10-minute walk)

Launching by the inimitable Mr Garth Nix.

And if you stick around at the gallery (well, if you stick around until October 27), you can see Nick Stathopoulos’s gallery exhibition, Playtime. I had a preview of some of the new works recently & they’re fabulous.

It’s here.

Well, not here. It’s in Perth, but it’s also (hopefully) on its way to Melbourne for launch during the Continuum weekend.

It’s A Book of Endings & it looks like this (byo cute puppy).

So at 5:15pm on Saturday 15 August, it will (hopefully) be launched at Cabinet, 11 Rainbow Alley, a 3-minute walk from the convention hotel.

And many thanks to everyone who helped out with launch venue suggestions! Who knew Melbourne had so many funky little bars within a metre of a randomly chosen hotel?!

I love that city.

(Sydneysiders, stay tuned for confirmation of the local launch.)

An update!

Firstly, my program items for Continuum include just one confirmed very cool, event:

Reading with Sean Williams!
Sunday 2.00pm Sun Sphere

Yes, reading WITH Sean, who graciously agreed to my cunning plan to avoid reading my own stuff.

The idea was planted in my head years back by Simon Brown, who listened sympathetically to my comment that I don’t like reading my own stuff. Simon said, ‘Next time we’re both at the same con, let’s swap.’ And then he fled to Thailand.

So, filled with a sense of uneasy duty re. the promoting of my first book, A Book of Endings, I approached the ever-gracious Mr Williams with the inherited plan and he, graciously, agreed! Which means Sunday from 2pm, he’ll be reading some of my stuff & I’ll be reading some of his, & we might swap back & forth or whatever fits in with the timeslot(s).

There is another unconfirmed event, of course, which is the launch of A Book of Endings (now available for pre-order) by the eminent Jonathan Strahan. This is the rogue, off-campus, programme-defying plan to have a glass of champagne to celebrate the fact the book is (hopefully!) printed and available for sale. But if it’s NOT printed or for sale, there will still be champagne, although we may all have to buy our own ‘cos the publisher will be in tears. (We shall buy drinks for the publisher, too, in that event.)

We DID have one of your standard programmed launches, but for various reasons that timeslot didn’t work out* & the programmers have been very accommodating in letting us do some kinda rebellious off-grid whatever-we-want thing instead. We don’t yet understand what that thing is because we are miles away from Melbourne, but we need a venue within very, very short stumbling distance who’d accommodate us for an hour probably on Saturday at 5:30pm. Perhaps we shall even do a launch-&-run, by turning up in a bar, ordering drinks, sending up a rousing cheer, & then running like hell before the owners of the establishment work out what in god’s name we’re doing there.

And once we have THAT plan in hand — whatever it is– by god, there’ll be a celebration!

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* The chaos of the launch does not phase me. Once we decided to go with the title, A Book of Endings (now available for pre-order), a whole bunch of things turned upside-down & so it is only to be expected that crazy, arse-about stuff is gonna happen with this book from woe to go. Or, go to woe, whichever is set to happen last…**
** Plans for the Sydney launch of A Book of Endings (now available for pre-order), however, are tracking well. Keep 3pm Saturday 10 October free for a launch by the awesome Garth Nix!